Johnston you know as much about Merc's programmes and Lewis' test plans as I do. Which is to say nothing at all.

Yes this ignorant know it all, without actually knowing anything, is getting irritating. Where is the ignore button on here, I would rather not see his pointless drivel?

So wait. I'm the one saying they are testing at an official test rather than just trying to go faster and doing more laps than the other guy and I'm the ignorant one

you don't need to know their official test plans. With such restrictions on testing only an imbecile would be trying to beat records on an official test rather than learning about the car.

They take every opportunity to test inc filming days on crappy tyres why the hell would they waste an official test day by simply trying to beat "Scores"?

Unless the people in this thread are suggesting that Merc are that incompetent to waste a day and Hammy is that self centred he would rather try and beat Nicos "Scores" rather than meaningful tests to improve the car.

The fact that they are behind their competition in this department is well known and admitted by team personnels last year itself.Ferrari had traditionally relied heavily on their own test track and on track development with 100s and 1000s of miles put on the actual track even when competitors had started using simulators in late 1990s and early 2000s. They started this very late and they have been behind for a while. The ban on testing hurt them more than anyone else to be honest as their heavy investment in their own track is now useless for F1.

Yeah ^ , next time RB wants to say they're down on horsepower we should remember that they also have 2 sacrificial cars on track to experiment with, and Ferrari have recently had to change their whole way of developing cars to something that was not in their nature. That's got to be worth a few points a season, and that's what they've lost by a few times now.

Besides it's a waste of a good track, and how much money and work went into building that?

Yeah ^ , next time RB wants to say they're down on horsepower we should remember that they also have 2 sacrificial cars on track to experiment with, and Ferrari have recently had to change their whole way of developing cars to something that was not in their nature. That's got to be worth a few points a season, and that's what they've lost by a few times now.

Besides it's a waste of a good track, and how much money and work went into building that?

Let them test. To each his own way of working.

But you must understand, running on track is bad, spending billions on better and better simulators is... um... good?

Yes the limited testing hurt Ferrari, but that was quite a long time ago now...you'd think a team with their resources would be up to speed (no pun intended) in the sim game (again no pun intended) by now. They've been using 'old school' thinking for too long, its good they've had that internal review and revamp of how they work this winter.

Yes the limited testing hurt Ferrari, but that was quite a long time ago now...you'd think a team with their resources would be up to speed (no pun intended) in the sim game (again no pun intended) by now. They've been using 'old school' thinking for too long, its good they've had that internal review and revamp of how they work this winter.

They can try converting themselves from one philosophy to another but it will be a while before they can work as efficiently as the others who had a more analytical approach to begin with and decades of experience with that.

Sadly I have not been paying too much in depth attention to testing, is Massa's pace genuine or just a faster set of tyres?

Massa's fast lap was the first of a 6 (I think, it could have been 5 or 7) laps stint, during which he showed some consistency in terms of times. It was a stint on soft tyres; I understand that Button's time on day 1 was on hards, Raikkonen's on day 4 on softs and Vettel's on day 4 on hards. I am unsure about which compound was used for other cars fast lap times.

Not really. The later into the test the better the car should be, and for sure the better the track is. Jules drove toward the end, and when Paul got back in he didn't do many laps, and was probably working on something else that didn't require pushing for a personal best. Jules is also pretty good at getting up to speed very quickly in a testing environment. Remember when he was fastest in multiple cars at the YDT?

Yes the limited testing hurt Ferrari, but that was quite a long time ago now...you'd think a team with their resources would be up to speed (no pun intended) in the sim game (again no pun intended) by now. They've been using 'old school' thinking for too long, its good they've had that internal review and revamp of how they work this winter.

I think Fry has changed a lot of things ever since he was promoted to Technical Director. Even last year he said it would take a while before these changes would start to bear fruit (in terms of results). Hopefully this year will be the first year that we do see some improved results.

It does seem that Ferrari's decision to fire Costa makes sense now if he let Ferrari's technical department stagnate.

Sadly I have not been paying too much in depth attention to testing, is Massa's pace genuine or just a faster set of tyres?

Massa's fast lap was the first of a 6 (I think, it could have been 5 or 7) laps stint, during which he showed some consistency in terms of times. It was a stint on soft tyres; I understand that Button's time on day 1 was on hards, Raikkonen's on day 4 on softs and Vettel's on day 4 on hards. I am unsure about which compound was used for other cars fast lap times.